The invention relates generally to a deuterium-tritium gas generator and more particularly to a vanadium hydride gas generator to supply deuterium-tritium in a series of controlled pressure increments.
Inertial confinement fusion, including laser fusion, in which a small target containing deuterium-tritium (DT) fuel is imploded to high density and temperature to cause a fusion reaction, is currently being developed as an energy source of the future. High quality glass microspheres filled with gaseous deuterium-tritium, typically at pressures of several thousand psi, are being used as experimental laser fusion targets in this energy development program. The glass microspheres are filled with deuterium-tritium by a diffusion process in which deuterium-tritium gas is allowed to permeate through the wall of the glass sphere. Thick walled targets could be filled in a single step by placing a DT pressure of several thousand psi directly on the microsphere. However thin walled spheres, e.g., of 140 micron diameter with a one or two micron wall thickness, must be filled to a high pressure in a series of gradual pressure steps. The pressure differential across the thin wall must be kept small or the microspheres will be crushed. No conventional gas generator provides deuterium-tritium in a series of controlled pressure increments to permit fabrication of new target designs needed to advance this important energy research.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,291,572 to Fatica issued Dec. 13, 1966, discloses a gas generator to produce hydrogen gas when water comes into contact with lithium hydride. Hydrogen generation rates are controlled by a controlled water input.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,436,191 to McGoff et al issued Apr. 1, 1969, discloses an oxygen generator in which the number of oxygen generating candles turned on at any given time depends on the pressure of oxygen.
Metallic hydrides have been used for storage of hydrogen because the hydrides formed have a very hydrogen atom density. Several metals including vanadium, palladium and uranium, form hydrides with deuterium-tritium. Metal Hydrides, Mueller, Blackledge, Libowitz, Academic Press, New York and London, 1968, describes the properties and uses of metal hydrides.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,711,601 to Reilly et al issued Jan. 16, 1973, discloses a process in which vanadium hydride undergoes hydrogen exchange with gaseous mixtures of deuterium-tritium in order to concentrate and recover the heavy hydrogen isotopes.